Mr. Bean's Holiday
Mr. Bean's Holiday is a 2007 family comedy film directed by Steve Bendelack and written by Hamish McColl and Robin Driscoll from a story by Simon McBurney. It is a British-French-American venture produced by StudioCanal, Working Title Films and Tiger Aspect Films, and distributed by Universal Pictures. Based on the British television series Mr. Bean and a stand-alone sequel to Bean (1997), the film stars Rowan Atkinson in the title role, Max Baldry, Emma de Caunes, Willem Dafoe and Karel Roden. Mr. Bean's Holiday was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on March 30, 2007 and in the United States on August 24, 2007 to mixed reviews from critics and was a box office success, having grossed $229.7 million against a $25 million budget. Plot In a raffle, Mr. Bean wins a holiday by train to Cannes, a video camera, and €200. Before catching his train, Bean causes chaos while sampling French seafood cuisine in a Paris restaurant. On the platform at Gare de Lyon, Bean asks movie director Emil Duchevsky (Karel Roden) to film him boarding the train using his new video camera. Bean keeps asking for retakes, until the train leaves with Bean and Duchevsky's son, Stepan (Max Baldry) on the train and Duchevsky is left behind. Bean and the boy get off at the next station. Duchevsky's train does not stop at the station, and he holds up a mobile phone number but inadvertently obscures the last two digits. Attempts at calling the number are fruitless. They board the next train but Bean has left his wallet, passport, and ticket in the telephone box. They are thrown off the train. Bean busks as a mime and buys the pair bus tickets to Cannes. Bean manages to lose both his ticket and Stepan so he sets out walking and hitchhiking. The next morning, he wakes in what appears to be a quaint French village under attack from German soldiers. It transpires to be a film set for a yoghurt advertisement directed by Carson Clay (Willem Dafoe), and Bean becomes an extra in the advert until he accidentally destroys the set in an explosion. Continuing to hitchhike, Bean is picked up by actress Sabine (Emma de Caunes), on her way to Cannes Film Festival where the film in which she makes her debut is to be presented. At a service station they find Stepan dancing with a band and take him with them. The trio end up driving through the night. Sabine sees on TV that Bean is suspected of kidnapping Stepan. She doesn't go to the police as she does not want to be late for her film in Cannes in just one hour. To avoid detection, Bean disguises himself and Stepan as Sabine's mother and daughter to gain entry to Sabine's premiere. At the festival, Bean is shocked to see that Sabine's role has been cut from the film. He plugs his video camera into the projector, projecting his video diary. The bizarre tale it tells fits director Carson Clay's narration perfectly, and the director, Sabine and Bean all receive standing ovations. Stepan is finally reunited with his father. After the screening, Bean leaves the building and goes to the beach, where he and the other characters of the film mime a large French musical finale. After the credits Bean writes "FIN" in the sand with his foot. Cast *Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean *Emma de Caunes as Sabine *Max Baldry as Stepan Dachevsky *Willem Dafoe as Carson Clay *Jean Rochefort as the Maître d'Hôtel *Karel Roden as Emil Dachevsky *Catherine Hosmalin as Ticket Inspector *Urbain Cancelier as Bus Driver *Stéphane Debac as Traffic Controller *Julie Ferrier as The First AD *Steve Pemberton as The Vicar *Lily Atkinson as Lily Production In February 2001, before filming began on Scooby-Doo, Rowan Atkinson was lured into making a second film about Mr. Bean going on an Australian adventure under the title Down Under Bean. However, this idea was scrapped in favor of Mr. Bean's Holiday, which was particularly inspired by the film Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953), whose title character inspired the character of Mr. Bean. Principal photography for the film began on 15 May 2006 under the working title French Bean. In March 2005, news of the film suggested that it would be written by Simon McBurney, but in December 2005, Atkinson stated that the screenplay was being written by himself and his long time collaborator Richard Curtis. The screenplay was later confirmed to have been written by Robin Driscoll and Hamish McColl, while the story was instead written by McBurney, who also served as one of the executive producers on the film. Music The film's score was composed and conducted by Howard Goodall, who also composed the original Mr. Bean series, although the original theme was unused. It has a symphonic orchestration which is a sophisticated score instead of the series' tendency to simple musical repetitions and features catchy leitmotifs for particular characters or scenes. The film's theme song was "Crash" by Matt Willis. Release It was the official film for Red Nose Day 2007, with money from the film going towards the charity Comic Relief. Prior to the film's release, a new and exclusive Mr. Bean sketch titled Mr. Bean's Wedding was broadcast on the telethon for Comic Relief on BBC One on 16 March 2007. The official premiere of the film took place at the Odeon Leicester Square on Sunday, 25 March and helped to raise money for both Comic Relief and the Oxford Children's Hospital. Universal Pictures released a teaser trailer for the film in November 2006 and launched an official website online the following month. Home media Mr. Bean's Holiday was released on DVD and HD DVD on 27 November 2007. The DVD release is in separate widescreen and pan and scan formats in the United States. The DVD charted at No. 1 on the DVD chart in the United Kingdom on its week of release. On April 16, 2019, the film was released for the first time on Blu-ray. There are fifteen deleted scenes included. The first deleted scene shows Bean spilling coffee on a laptop in front of two sleeping men. He cleans it up by licking the screen and wiping the keyboard with napkins, leaving just as one man wakes and blames the other for destroying his laptop. This scene was featured on trailers and TV spots for the film, and the North American release has it in place of the vending machine scene. The second deleted scene shows Bean tricking a man to get a train ticket and staying with Stepan on the train. The fourth shows Bean carrying Stepan all the way through a plaza. The fifth shows Sabine leaving emotionally and almost being run over by a truck, Bean doing silly moves along the road (which are later seen in Carson Clay's Playback Time), playing with the shadows in the morning, miming his journey to Stepan at the cafeteria, being menaced by a projectionist at the Cannes Film Festival (at the playing of Clay's movie), accidentally cutting the film roll and trying to stick it back together, and Carson Clay discovering the film roll accumulating in the projection room. The damaged film is seen lying next to the projector in the final cut though it remains unexplained. Finally, Bean is seen dancing at the beach, a scene that was replaced by the characters singing "La Mer". Reception Box office Mr. Bean's Holiday opened in the United States on 24 August 2007, alongside War and The Nanny Diaries, and grossed $9,889,780 in its opening weekend while playing in 1,714 theaters, with a $5,770 per-theater average and ranking No. 4 at the box office. The film closed on 18 October 2007 with a final domestic gross of $33,302,167 and a final international gross of $196,434,177. Culminating in a worldwide total of $229,736,344, the film has become commercially successful considering its $25 million budget. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 30 March 2007 and topped the country's box office for the next two weekends, before being dethroned by Wild Hogs. Critical response On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 52% based on 113 reviews with an average rating of 5.45/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Mr. Bean's Holiday means well, but good intentions can't withstand the 90 minutes of monotonous slapstick and tired, obvious gags." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 56 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale. Category:Films Category:2007 Category:2000s Category:Universal Pictures films Category:Live-action films Category:G-rated films Category:Mr. Bean's Holiday